Estimated Price:

   $   

Realized Price:

   $   

What is this symbol? This symbol indicates that this auction hose has verified this price result.

Log in or subscribe to view price data

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF BRADFORD K. BACHRACH LOUIS JACQUES MANDÉ DAGUERRE 1787-1851 SELECTED DAGUERRE MANUALS

A group of 3 early Daguerre manuals, comprising Historique et Description des Procédés du Daguerréotype et du Diorama, par Daguerre... Nouvelle Edition (Paris: Alphonse Giroux et Cie, 1839), illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of Daguerre and 5 plates; Description of the Daguerreotype Process, or A Summary of M. Gouraud's Public Lectures, According to the Principles of M. Daguerre (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth's Print., 1840); and Description de Nouveaux Daguerréotypes Perfectionnés et Portatifs, avec L'Instruction de M. Daguerre, Annotée... Par Buron (Paris: Imprimerie de Mme Ve Donday-Dupré, 1841), illustrated with a folding plate. 8vo, original wrappers, the second and third volumes loosely sewed together and in a contemporary folding cloth slipcase, the third inscribed 'S. A. Bemis' in pencil on the front wrapper and 'Dr. S. A. Bemis' in pencil on the half-title (3)

CATALOGUE NOTE

The manuals offered here were owned by a member of the famous Bachrach portrait studio family. The business was founded by David Bachrach, Jr. (1845 - 1921), who began his camera apprenticeship in 1860s Baltimore. The first Bachrach studio was opened in that city in 1869, and over the next decades, branches spread to a number of other cosmopolitan centers. The history of the Bachrachs, who defined an American photographic portrait style for over a century, is recounted in Douglas Collins's Photographed by Bachrach: 125 Years of American Portraiture (New York, 1992).

What appears to be the ownership signature of Dr. Samuel A. Bemis is inscribed on the front wrapper and half-title of the 1841 manual. Bemis (1793 - 1881), a dentist, attended Gouraud's lectures in Boston in the spring of 1840, and produced some of the earliest daguerreotypes in America.